


The Bloom of Love

by nonky



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:54:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6102473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davis Bloome saw blood every day; his lover felt it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the second half of Season Eight.
> 
> Bloom – 1. To flower, in plants.  
> 2.Metaphorically, the vigorous pleasures of youth, beauty and romance.  
> 3.To blemish or darken.  
> 4.To expand and thrive.  
> 5.The redness or fresh appearance on the surface of meat.  
> 6.The healthy flush of good health and vitality.

He didn't anticipate the horrors of losing her well enough, Davis Bloome despaired. He had looked to the light of her presence, and missed the corresponding darkness behind his back. It was on them now.

Chloe wouldn't look at him. It wasn't disgust or fear, but she did not once face him after getting out of bed. He didn't know what he'd done wrong. She had been in his arms all night, her forehead pressed under his chin. He had gathered her small body in and kept her warm and near. She had smiled at him, and let him kiss her. Then she got up. She hadn't hurried or fled. They were fine.

Then he had nothing.

He stared down into his coffee and gave himself a mental slap. Nothing was not a serviceable hotel room and a functional vehicle. Nothing was not a beautiful saviour folding his freshly laundered clothing into his bag. Nothing wasn't a stomach heavy with food he'd eaten while she had declined.

I went out by myself, he thought. I wanted her to have some time and privacy. I wanted to show her I won't always have to be tethered to her like a child.

When he had suggested it, Chloe had given him only a tepid, “If you're sure it's okay.” Her voice had lost the clear note of truth he was used to from her.

They were stuck for the afternoon, until the sun set and there were fewer people on the highways. Davis had asked her if she was sick, and she denied it. Chloe's fair skin was chalky white, and she had made a point of locking the bathroom door while she was in there. The Beast hadn't liked it, and he waited in silence until she emerged. Her wan smile was not convincing.

“What's wrong,” he asked, hands spread over the tabletop to keep from wringing them.

“Nothing,” she told him, a hint of sharpness coming through. “I'm fine.”

Setting his shirt precisely on top of the pile, she turned and went into the bathroom again. The door locked with a hollow thunk. His heart made a similar jolt.

I knew she would hate me eventually, he berated himself. She left everything, for me, for this, and what can I possibly give her? In a year, we might be able to hide in the same place for a month. We could work dead-end jobs and save up to run again.

He should have prepared himself for this break in their bond. She hated The Beast for being a killer, but Davis was the one she was sacrificing herself to save. If there were only alien instincts in him, she could hand him over to her friends to be contained. If he had better control, it could never have killed all those people. They had met too late, and he was too far gone even for Chloe. Love had to be unconditional, and he couldn't ask her to compromise her morals that much.

His chest hurt, but Davis pulled himself up. He zipped his bag shut, and threw out his coffee. He would do right by her now, and she could be back with her family and friends. He didn't know how far he could get before The Beast came out, but he had to believe it wouldn't hurt Chloe. She was the only thing that cut through the blind rage.

He knocked on the bathroom door, swallowing hard. “Chloe, can we talk, please?”

“Yeah,” she called, after a moment.

Davis propped himself on the door frame, holding his heart in with both hands. He pursed his lips and stared at the bed they had shared. The last bed he would share, most likely. There was no moving on from Chloe, but she could move on – or go back if that was her choice.

When it was clear she wouldn't come out to speak to him, he ventured, “I think I know what's wrong. Listen, I – It's okay. I'm in control, The Beast isn't going to get out because of it.”

He tried to give her confidence like the many times she had told him he was not losing control. He always believed Chloe. It wasn't so much that she was never lying to him, it was her belief that turned the tide in Davis' favour. He found strength he couldn't account for and he kept himself together. He would just take that idea and use it without her presence. Surely, knowing she was out there in the world would be inspiration enough to do it alone. Chloe could be happy, and he wanted that so badly.

“I think it finally hit you today . . . you're on the run, with me, and it's dangerous. You're putting yourself at risk, and I don't want you to stay with me out of pity or,” he sighed. “Listen, if you need to leave, I support that. I'll get out of here and you can make a call in a few hours. They won't find me, but you can be home for breakfast tomorrow.”

In the tiny bathroom, she looked at the door with a pained expression. He was wrong. She didn't want to leave him. Chloe couldn't make him drag her raving and deteriorating behind him, either. She had to get over her issues quickly, and get back to her real purpose.

“That's not what I want, Davis,” she called out. “That is the last thing I want. I need a bath right now, and then we'll talk. Okay?”

Waves and peals of misery were soaking into the words, and Davis gritted his teeth. “You had a shower not long ago. Are you in pain? Did I hurt you?”

It felt terrible even thinking it, but Davis could justify murder more than forcing Chloe to have sex with him. When he killed, he was sating the urges of The Beast. He didn't want to do it, and he was certain it was wrong, but it was his only option. The Beast craved blood like Davis craved love. They both looked to Chloe to tell them she had fixed her destiny beside them. He had never thought to hide his past from her, because it honestly felt like she must know it all. She combined his urges with The Beast's, though, and horror could only follow that.

Last night, hard inside her, Davis remembered her fisted hands up on the pillow. He pushed past lush, sensual memories – for him at least – and tried to grasp details. Had she been tense? Had she shuddered in his arms? Did she hold on to the pillow in abandon or fear?

His hands and head bent to the cheap wood, irrationally trying to feel her. “Chloe?”

“You didn't hurt me, you'd never do that,” she told him firmly. “Please, I really need a bath.”

She pulled a towel down and stripped, cringing out of her panties and ridding herself of a tampon. Chloe scrubbed her hands frantically, then wrapped up in the towel. She turned on the bathtub faucet. His weight pushed the door experimentally. She gripped the edge of the sink.

“I'll let you in," Chloe said.

She watched the cheap wood ease, and turned the knob. He was where Davis always was; right in front of her, pained, needy and unconsciously begging for a kiss. His hands notched around the frame, and he licked his lips.

“Whatever I did, I didn't mean to, but you have to let me fix it,” he pleaded. “I have some of the stuff from my med kit. You can tell me anything. You're all that matters.”

A few tears welled and streaked down her face. He loved her and she was hurting him. Her mouth was forming words before she recalled the difficulty making anguish verbal.

“You didn't hurt me. You don't ever hurt me, Davis.”

They stared at each other until it felt real. Eventually, he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. Chloe crowded back toward the bathtub, her hands clutching the towel. Brown eyes narrowed on the motion.

“I'm not touching you,” Davis said, plainly hurt. “That's not why I came in here.”

He sank all six feet of himself to the floor, bringing his legs in until he would have to waste away to take up less space. His palms flattened to the tiles as if to promise their good behaviour. “Why can't you look at me, Chloe?”

Because he was her everything. Because of the years before Davis when her everything was his enemy. Because she had done all of his and her own laundry and washed herself, but there was still blood. Because he was impossible and she still wanted him; even if he was a delusion her sick mind cooked up in a mental hospital. Because for all the times she was still and calm, there were times when she should be screaming and maybe she was and the echoes made her mind quake.

“Everything smells like blood,” Chloe gasped. “I washed the clothes and I showered but it didn't work. It's me – there's blood on me, and I can't-”

She rubbed at her belly and he thought back to how long they'd been on the road. It was weeks, now. She was bleeding, but not hurt. Understanding dawned with vast relief, then narrowed back to concern. He hadn't made the association between her period and the man he'd scooped into triple layered garbage bags for Chloe to carry to the dumpster. His most recent – hopefully last – murder. The numbers were becoming unknowable for Davis, so he took the guilt as a whole. He was a killer.

A whisper in the back of his mind told him the last was justice. The last was to protect Chloe. It was a terrible thing to have to know about himself, but it wasn't the most terrible. He would do the same again, but she would be spared her role of accomplice. The Beast knew how to clean up after itself, and Davis was determined it would comprehend the need to keep Chloe separated from its kills.

Climbing to his feet, Davis indicated the filling bathtub. “Turn off the water,” he said. “I want to tell you something.”

A pale, tear-stained face nodded, and Chloe stopped the water. She looked into his eyes as Davis took her hands. “You didn't kill him. You didn't even ask for him to be killed. All you did was protect me,” he pointed out. “You couldn't have done anything but what you did. What prison could hold up to what I can do? Who would be able to arrest me? Any other way was more death, and you're a good person. You want to save people.”

He was the paramedic, the guy who brought shelter intake papers across the city on his day off, Chloe thought. He was the one who would have died gladly to stop killing.

“You didn't choose to be a monster, Davis,” she sighed. “I won't accept that it's your fault.”

He was Catholic, vehemently so when it helped him make sense of his own torture. If his was martyrdom, he embraced it. But Chloe had to be carried above that fate. That was what her blood meant to him.

“I am a monster, sometimes,” he reminded her, smiling gently.

Chloe pulled away and turned her back, sobbing. She wanted another word for it, another way to name the being that shared his life. She had wasted tens of thousands of pep talks on Clark, and now her ability to recalibrate events failed her. Everyone said love outlasted death, but they didn't mean a body count of hundreds.

“I'm less of a monster because of you,” Davis said quietly, his hands sliding around her waist. “And you're wrong to think your blood is the same as death. It's life, Chloe, all the life that could exist in the future. You bleed now so you'll be able to have a child when you want one – when you're ready.”

He pressed her to his chest, sheltering her. Chloe felt Davis' slightest breath along her neck, then his nose dragged over the sensitive column. The weary sickness had left her, and a thrum of desire tightened her thighs. One gentle, masculine hand pressed her two smaller ones to her abdomen.

He had as much as promised her a baby, and her stomach knotted with longing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Content warning for sex and mild bloodplay.

Chloe held her breath, and looked into the mirror to Davis behind her. His face was buried in her hair, but he lifted up to stare intensely down at her body. His hand let hers go, and she covered her prickling nipples. He wasn't staring – at least not at her present self. He could see it. She didn't have that much faith.

“Tell me,” she whispered.

There was a harsh, vulnerable silence, then the slow and careful tone she recognized as Davis' most serious, emotional confessions.

“Now is too soon, but when I can take care of the two of you. We'll need a house, a daycare, a hospital,” he said thoughtfully. “I want to do this right.”

That caring was enough to make her want to throw all the careful planning to one side and just go for it with him. If Davis was this invested in something so far away, when it was upon them he would make it work. He would uphold his end of things so arduously her shortcomings would be nothing.

“We'll probably have to try for a while until your birth control is totally out of your system, but we'll call it practice. There are these crazy positions you can do that are supposed to give you a boy or a girl. I don't think they really work; it might be fun anyway, getting all twisted around each other. And I'm going to have to kiss you all the time, just to be sure no one gets any ideas about stealing you away. You're going to look amazing and golden.”

He started out almost chuckling, then dropped into the very reverent way he often spoke about her body. Chloe couldn't put that together with her overly-short, nothing special frame. She carried herself better than when she was an insecure teenager, but there was a whole world of women out there; Davis could be a model.

“You don't have to say that,” she whispered.

Her focus had always been on conforming as best she could to expectations; to keeping the boyfriend she had instead of looking around. It wasn't that she felt she couldn't be single, but she didn't need the damage of a breakup. Once she accepted someone as a fixture in her life, she was loathe to lose them for a personal failing that disappointed them. Chloe had always tried to negotiate past any of her own disappointments to hold on to the good parts of her relationships.

Davis had devastated her, sent her into near insanity trying to turn her back on her feelings. He had killed for her. He counted on her for every moment of his human existence. It was somehow easier to deal with that extremity than the way he loved her with quiet devotion. The horror of Doomsday was easier to grasp than the void of her own disbelief that he could love her so well.

“I do have to say it,” Davis told her. He eased his fingertips under the towel and started untucking it. “It's the most profound truth I could ever claim to be teaching you. I don't know why I'm the first to be trying, but you shouldn't have had to wait for me.”

That set her off in a shaky fit of sobbing and scrubbing at her eyes as if she could deny it. Her eyes were already sore and she was sick of crying. It only lasted a minute before Davis' intent gaze brought her back to herself. Chloe leaned on him and tipped her head back.

“I believe you mean it,” she gasped. “But that makes me afraid I'll let you down. I don't want to fail you, Davis.”

“You couldn't fail me,” he said certainly, his mouth curving on her nape. The towel let go with one final movement of his hand. He didn't look down, his gaze steadily on Chloe's in the mirror. “Can I touch you, Chloe?”

His hands were playing gently over her collarbone, but that wasn't what he meant. His body was pressed to her, leaving space for her to sidle out past him and leave.

“Yeah . . . " She said it like a complete idiot, some airhead in a romantic movie where it all turned out okay. Chloe had always been the upright spine of her relationships, supporting loves perhaps not strong enough to continue growing. She wished for her usual hard-nosed commitment, and found it was something closer to a soft, womanly ache that Davis healed. Still, he deserved a proper answer, her share of the responsibility for all this. "Yes, please."

This meek little version of herself was new. She was used to being either a teaching girlfriend or adrift in the whims of a man with bigger things on his mind than her reactions. Davis was watching everything she did closely, but his hands knew what to do. They soothed along her legs until Chloe moved her feet apart. Normally there were all sorts of spots he insisted on visiting, but she supposed standing up in a bathroom limited them.

His hot exhale over her skin told her he probably couldn't afford to linger when he was so focused. She moved her arms out of Davis' way as his hand cupped her pussy.

 

His fingers were wet immediately, but he had to be sure she was aroused. There was a very hard quiver from her body as his fingertip pushed inside, and a gush of warmth. He would take a little of both, as long as he knew she wanted him.

The scent of blood rose in the humid air, and she whimpered with a restless motion. Her hands came back and held his wrist, pulling him away.

"I don't know if I can," she whispered. "I've never, during – Davis."

She curled in on herself and ducked under his arms, turning to press her face to his shirt. He brushed her hair back and sighed. It was only fair to give her time and make himself equally vulnerable. Davis lifted his shirt over his head, tossing it toward the corner. He put Chloe's hands on his belt, and she started opening the buckle.

"I like how you undress me," he said. "Like you're eager but you're not in a hurry. You're concentrating on all the steps along the way."

"You do have better skin than I do," she said, running a fingernail along his belly. "And abs. I will never have muscle definition like you."

He chuckled, and reached down to goose her. "That might be a little butch for me anyway. I love you, no amendments or exceptions."

Davis stepped back and pushed the rest of his clothes down in a single motion, leaving the boots and socks tangled in the pants. He took a deep breath and the unique mixture of emotions rise as Chloe's green eyes studied him.

Her lips parted - he didn't think she meant to do it - and licked her mouth long and slow. The moment of cliff-edge terror before she showed she still wanted him was difficult, but it added up to passion that was more than he'd ever felt.

"I get nervous sometimes," Davis told her. "But this between us is something I don't have to be ashamed of."

She nodded and absently kicked her towel off her feet. "I'm not ashamed. It's just always seemed distasteful and messy."

He pulled her in and kissed her, deep and hard, grinding their bodies together. Even if she wasn't mentally convinced, every other part of Chloe wanted him. He wouldn't try to convince her unless it was what she really wanted.

"Let's try, just a little bit at a time."

She nodded, swaying gently as she smiled. Davis kneaded both hands down her sides, taking his time before he pressed gently on her clit. Chloe made a noise, and lifted up on her toes. His hand slid deeper, and he nipped at her ear.

"I think you've been missing out, because this definitely feels like a good idea."

She glared at him briefly, then sighed, "I'm not sure smug is the best way to get your turn."

"Sorry," Davis grinned.

He backed her against the sink and enjoyed her shiver as he found the right spot inside her. Pumping one finger slowly, he felt the tremors starting with barely any provocation. Davis' free hand petted her breasts, teasing her already hard nipples.

"You're so hot and clinging," he told her. "You're so ready. Are you okay?"

Chloe's head nodded, but she didn't bother to open her eyes. She was bouncing on her toes, propelling his finger in rougher thrusts.

"Still messy," she mumbled, holding on to him.

"Not messy, it smells like you. I like your smell."

Chloe huffed a dismissive laugh, but her voice was whiskey-and-cigarettes hoarse. Her shoulders shifted and she had the tense but mindless expression of arousal.

Davis paused, then tweaked her nipple and clit at the same time. She flinched and moaned, clawing at him. "Do you wanna turn around for me?"

Chloe planted her hands on the counter and took forever turning around. She kept her head down and avoided the mirror. Her thighs shook as she parted them not wide enough. Davis had to stay close but he didn't touch her until she was all the way around and braced. Her forehead was nearly brushing the faucet.

His hand went around her belly and she inhaled sharply. It trailed down between her legs, spreading moisture too thick not to be some blood. He would help her clean up later. Davis lapped at the back of her neck and she squeaked a tiny helpless sound.

“I don't-” Painful inhale, very hard exhale and a long spate of shivering from her he couldn't make better without making her shatter and scream. “I don't want to fall. I think I might fall.”

He was far too hard to make the hug chaste, but Davis leaned his upper body to her back and told himself he was waiting for a signal to go forward. The shaking wasn't it, nor were the little sounds of gratitude when he wrapped his arms around her. Chloe's nipples burned on the insides of his arms, but he didn't put any pressure there. She might be sore. She might be changing her mind.

Then she panted, leaned forward with an abrupt twist, and her hand was under his balls petting him gently.

He should have given her more time, maybe even the rest of the day, but it felt too late for all that. Davis had his hips pitched to follow her angle, and his gentle teases down her legs had finally eased her enough to spread wide enough for taking. Chloe was shivering with need and nerves. He cupped her breasts from behind and made a point of not advancing or retreating.

Finally, her head rolled back in pleading surrender.

His first slipping, too wet nudge went awry, rubbing along her lengthwise instead of catching in the notch where she was pulsing. Davis ground on her a little bit and she whimpered. The whole thing was nearly disaster when Chloe ducked her head low and came close to smacking it hard on the counter. He pried one hand off her and ripped clean towels down, throwing them still folded across the sink so it was padded.

He managed the entry with a tiny push, holding shallow as her voice rose and echoed around them. It could have been a protest, but the note was the good kind of desperate. It was loud enough to be coming, and she stiffened like rejection. Her shoulders rolled loosely with a motion that would have put her arms around him were he in front of her. Chloe reached out for the wall, and braced her hands.

She started rolling and jittering back to him, shaking Davis with the power of her body. He fixed both hands low on her back, distracting himself with small, beautiful details. Her hair was a mass of gold, her back smooth and hot. He put his thumbs in the dimples above her ass, and watched as Chloe's motion slipped his cock deeper and then partly out.

He wanted to give her the lead, but Chloe was smotheringly wet and tight. She squealed at a long, sharp thrust, and Davis could see her clench. Everything head to toe drove back to him, squeezing frantically on his cock. She hugged an armful of towels up from the sink, and threw her hand back to find him.

Mingling his fingers between Chloe's, Davis leaned down and started pounding at her pussy. He felt like a runner about to have a heart attack, undone and almost ridiculously desperate. He just wanted to make her come. If he could make Chloe come, he could call the ache in his balls worth it.

Undulating between his weight and the sink, she jarred her hips faster and faster. Davis was flooded with sentiment. She was so strong. He had to live up to her strength. He should be trying to think of baseball scores or horrific car accidents to keep from orgasm, but all he could think was Chloe. She turned her face to the side and buried it into a pillow, her body clamping down on him and holding him breathless as she flew and hitched around him.

Davis froze, chest heaving and tears coming to his eyes as he let himself pour out into her. Chloe was making a rising and falling moan from low in her throat. He gritted his teeth and felt all the anxiety melt in shaking jerks.

"Oh, God. Oh, Davis . . . " She hugged his fist to her mouth, kissing the fingers that had grabbed her probably too roughly.

Unable to resist, he leaned down and bit lightly on her shoulder blade, creating an aftershock that made Davis swallow a stupid gulp. He took deep breaths and blinked to ease the lightheaded thrill.

"That was amazing," he gasped. "You're amazing."

He could hear the smile in her words: "Well, don't give me all the credit. It was your idea. I just made it amazing."

Davis didn't bother correcting her joke. He eased from Chloe's body and looked down fondly as she fussed at the twin smears of fluids down her thighs.


End file.
